We will be 7 points behind Liverpool and the Goons and 10 behind Chelsea and 3 behind City tonight...and only 3 ahead of United. 2nd bad weekend of results out of the last 3
Liverpool in attack show why we lost...they play a quick one touch passing game that panics the opposition and does not give them time to get behind the ball. It doesn't always work but it sets a tone for the match. We want 2 or 3 touches which allows the opposition to get behind the ball so we end up going sideways and backwards. If we played 1 touch football, with our defence we would be a certainty for top 4 and could win a cup instead of being pretty boring (in at least half our matches) and winning sod all
Other than allowing Wanyama a free header 3 yards from goal which he cleared with great defensive ability!!
Poch once again speaking about the need to 'focus on looking forward'. Nice sentiments sir, but if you aren't careful we'll turn around and it will be April and all we'll have to 'look forward' to will be some meaningless corporate summer tour of Far Far Away.
Literally a conveyor belt of errors today, from players to management. Really frustrating day. Utd probably just about deserved their victory on the basis of having better chances but it wasn't a great game, both keepers made one or two half decent saves but nothing out of the ordinary and the ball seemed predominantly in the middle of the park. In terms of Spurs... Well where do I start? I need someone to explain to me how Dele Alli managed to stay on for 90 minutes. Seriously. That was by far the single worst performance of a Spurs player all season - eclipsing Sissoko's **** show against Leverkusen and Eriksen's first 10 or so Prem games. He should be utterly ashamed of himself, if he wasn't giving the ball away or fouling, he was acting a whiny little bitch and not getting on with things. Poch also deserves a slap round the chips for choosing to keep him on. Eriksen went back to forgetting how to be a footballer again, so that was wonderful, Kane also joined him in that though, essentially meaning it was 8 vs 11 on the pitch because a gust of wind was more effective than those three and it was Kane who cost us the goal with a sloppy pass. As for the subs, I just can't understand what Poch was doing. Son wasn't playing brilliantly but he was a damn site better than Alli and Eriksen, he was the only one of 'the three' actually running at the defence and looking to make something happen, so taking him off and not one of those two bemused me. Then taking Mousa off... I mean what the ****? OK he wasn't in his best form but his ability to break forward is/ was key in any chance of getting an equaliser, I'm a fan on Winksy but he's not a game changer, he's a lad that at the moment you bring on in order to retain possession to keep a lead, not someone to come on and press for an equaliser. Then taking off Eriksen, when, despite being utterly ****, was still not as bad Alli... I'm literally dumbfounded as to how Dele Alli played 90 minutes of football today. If anything I'd have taken Wanyama off and gone all out for the equaliser, we were losing, needed a goal, why not just go for it? Worst that can happen is Utd double their lead and we still lose. Another negative and this one is a fine margin one but going to my point pre-match in that while Big Vic has been an excellent signing, his header in the second half was woeful and I can't help but feel that if that was Dier, it's either going in or making De Gea pull off a good save - I get if Dier played he may not have been in that exact position but presuming due to their DM roles they're told to make similar runs. Wanyama HAS been superb and while he's probably slightly better than Dier at defending, Dier has so much more to his game going forward and taking sentimentality aside, we have to go with our strongest available XI and I think Dier has to get in over Wanyama from now on if we're only playing one DM. Though right now I'd happily play the both and sacrifice one of Alli or Eriksen with Mousa going further up, they haven't justified their constant starts in the team this season on a consistent basis. The only positive we can take from this match was that Moussa Sissoko actually looked like a bloody good footballer for once. I was so impressed with his performance that he was by far our MOTM in just his 30 mins, the only guy that seemed interested in getting us back into the game and fair play to him, it's a good start in hitting back at his critics. More performances like that please, Moussa. Need 6 points in our next two games, anything less and we'll really lose grip on our hopes of top four.
At this point, we should be treating fixtures like this as 'one we could win'. But Looks like we came here 'not to lose'. All in all, it was a poor, drab display. You could almost see the confidence seeping out of the our players as the first half dragged on. Far too many 'small square passing' again., followed by an array of 'retreat back passes' which all together resembled something from the lower levels of the women's amateur game. No real penetration through the middle from the half way line today and 'Mourinho did a job on Walker and Rose. And apart from all that, we appeared to be clueless. This was supposed to be , to all intent and purpose a full strength eleven. Have we now been sussed !. Kane was all too easily marked out of the game., and we still don't have comparable options up front to carry the game forward. It just goes to show that you can't spend foolish money on mediocre and expect progress into the elite level of premiership football. Jennsen and Sissoko are not the answer. A tussle for 5th or 6th spot beckons.
Liverpool dropping points just rubs salt in the wound. If there is a way to make life difficult for ourselves, we'll find it and exploit it. What a crap season this has been.
The Poool drew !!?? Oh FFS !!! Go and speak to Fergie, Pochettino. And ask him EXACTLY HOW he would be talking to his team today at HT/FT if they were the ones playing in white and the opposition were playing in red.
Dembele had to come off because of a foot injury, according to Poch. That has to be the third time Dembele's been ruled out due to niggling injuries this season - which is bloody infuriating for everyone not named Harry Winks.
I think today once again exposes how poor our summer transfer business was. Last season we had a great first 11 and those involved just "clicked". Toby made us completely solid at the back, Dier developed into a great DM that no one had played against, Lamela started looking like a £30mill player, Dembele had his best season ever for us, and Alli was a complete unknown to PL defenders, giving his all to impress and make the step up to the prem. In a way it was like having lots of new signings that freshened things up, despite many of those named already playing for us. - and luckily, it clicked, as i said. However, the one problem we had was that there was no depth or personnel that could help with a tactical change. Infact, taking 1 player out of those 11 players that essentially picked themselves, saw the house of cards fall down. Sadly, the style of play that developed from the so called first 11 of last season has been found out, and we're seeing more evidence of that this season. Infact, we'd already been found out by several teams at the end of last season. The players we have at our disposal this season still don't offer any alternative solutions, despite making a handful of signings. We've simply not built/improved upon the level we reached last season and learnt from our campaign in terms of how and who we needed to push on. Some of our players face no healthy competition for their place whatsoever. Each team has studied our likely attacking options for a match against us and has made life very difficult for us this season as they know that our attacking style hasn't changed, and nor have the players. GKN never plays, Janssen isn't a threat, Sissoko has generally been poor or on the bench and Wanyama isn't an attacking option. - So it's business as normal for Spurs, and a "thank you very much" from our opponents who can use last years experience to improve their performance against us this season. Until we get a couple of fresh attacking players who can shake things up, inspire others that are already on the pitch, provide competition for places, change the gear that the game is played in, and generally make us become a bit of an unknown again, I think we're going to see this slow clueless football for some time. It's been like it all season and no sign that it's going to change. We've kind of coasted since the end of last season and everything's been a bit "meh" and lacked excitement, while other clubs have made steps to progress. Because of this, I think we're about where we should be. It's just a shame that we've not made those steps to push on.
The saddest thing is as well is that I (and I think many others) really thought that at the time the summer business was solid work. GKN looked a live-wire from YouTube vids, kind of in the mould of Lennon but just as an inside forward that looked to score rather than a wide winger looking to assist, Janssen scored goals for fun in Holland and the sheer fact we signed another striker seemed like a miracle while Sissoko, even though I think every Spurs fan didn't really want him, he was still joining off the back of a superb European Championships display and added another option in attack. These guys added to a side who played ****ing superb for about 8/10's of last season gave me the impression we were going to kick on. In hindsight, if I'd known GKN would be used sparingly, Janssen was going to look like a CB being asked to play up front and barring today (and the City game) Sissoko would look like the player that helped Newcastle to relegation, I'd have probably cut the phone/ fax lines of the club to ensure those deals wouldn't go through! We're in a bit of sticky situation because I think we're at that number (Eriksen's CAM role aside) in which anyone brought in would have to result in one going out to balance the books. Realistically Alli and Eriksen won't be sold, nor will Lamela, Son has been brilliant in flashes and ****e in others, so I think he stays too for the benefit of the doubt while the others are new guys in which the likelihood of selling just 6 months after joining is highly unlikely. I swear we must be one of the most unluckiest clubs on the planet, for probably a decade now we've been the side always most likely to break that top 4 monopoly on a regular basis yet something always seems to hold us back after a short spell of "success". If it's not a catalogue of injuries, it's new signings not living up to the hype or failing that it's key players just underperforming at crucial times. You sometimes wonder if we're ever going to just hit that switch and watch everything fall perfectly in motion. We supposedly missed out on Isco in the summer, I know I joked about it loads back then but realistically do I see him joining in Jan? I don't think so. So then I ask who out there is better than say Eriksen, Alli and Lamela/ Son, that would join us and is attainable? It's so tough. I feel like the club needs to sign a Modric/ Berbatov/ Bale, someone that no one really knows of or no one wants to take a risk on just yet but they suddenly become a world star almost instantaneously.
That is not the way to go! We tried it for years before Poch and it didn't work. This squad will grow older and wiser together and it is simply too harsh to expect them to be the finished article now.
We can't yet afford to sign better players. We can still get 4th and build from another CL campaign. Better than that is unrealistic.
I think we as fans make too many excuses for the team sometimes. You can't buy hunger, for me this set up is peckish but not hungry enough. That's why they settle for sandwiches whilst we dream about feasts.
Affording them isn't really an issue any more, Power. It's just more down to attracting them. Off the top of my head, there's two top class players out there who could likely come in to our side and play better than say an on form Alli/ Eriksen/ Lamela - Isco and Draxler. Both would probably command fees of £40m+ and wages of around £100k-£120k a week, this is affordable for us, probably quite 'easily' now due to the new TV deal money amongst other financial incomings but the problem is actually convincing those types of guys that Spurs is where their next destination should be and not somewhere like City/ Chelsea/ Arsenal etc.
It isn't too harsh to expect them to at least match the effort and performance levels we saw regularly last season though (we also weren't the finished article last season). It is also dangerous to assume that 'this squad will grow older and wiser together'. Failure to qualify for next season's CL will put that assumption to all kinds of scrutiny. It is also a mistake to say that 'we tried it for years before Poch and it didn't work'. Incorrect. We have grown and progressed on a slow but steady upward trajectory since more or less the moment ENIC took over 15 years ago. That progress hit two major snags in recent times: The ill-advised sacking of BMJ and bringing in a clueless and inept replacement...Harry soon had us back on track because he inherited a squad far better than 2 points from 8 games suggested. Secondly, the ill-advised investment of almost every penny of the Bale Fund. Two factors propelled Poch from the wreckage left behind by the second error: A) An unusually large crop of academy products who all wore their hearts on their sleeve and gave everything every game. Mason, Townsend, Bentaleb and Kane combined re-ignited the flame of passion around the club. But Poch can't really take credit for this ahead of Tim Sherwood. B) An unusually successful transfer window prior to his second season in charge that saw us make possibly the two best £-for-£ signings of the entire footballing world in Alli and Alderweireld. Combined with the arrival of Kevin Wimmer and we suddenly looked menacing going forward and watertight at the back. The successes of BMJ and Harry were very much built on having a core of experienced players at the club. The likelihood of the academy producing another Harry Kane, as well as the likelihood of us finding another Toby/Alli in the market, are remote in the extreme. Yet Poch appears to think that lightning will strike not once, not twice, but every time he needs it to. Our summer signings haven't worked, it's as simple as that. And I am 100% in support of @Spurlock 's opinion here when he correctly points out that if you are a young and numerically limited squad who have just qualified for the Big Time, you need investments to hit the ground running. I am sick and tired of the 'let's wait and see' philosophy that has prevailed over our club since the day Poch hung his coat at the door. The PL stands still for no-one. Harry and BMJ knew that. They balanced out their 'wait and see' prospects with tried and trusted mentors such as Davids, Naybet, Parker, Gallas and Friedel. I cannot see how this squad will grow 'wiser together' if there is no-one to learn that wisdom from. No-one. Not the manager, not the captain, not the vice captain, not any significant outfield player has any trophy-winning/CL campaign experience worth writing home about. And this thought fills me with dread: You can learn advanced mathematics from a tutor all your life; if he can't count what you end up knowing isn't maths.
Without going over old ground, we spent £30m on Sissoko. So the argument of not having the money, or who can we realistically sign (as if we have some sort of handicap) doesn't apply, IMO. We just need to face up to the reality that we need to spend our money more wisely. If there was £30mill to spend, but we supposedly need to be so shrewd and careful with money, why are we making panic buys on deadline day? That doesn't make any sense. Also, GKN took the best part of 2 months to sign like he was a "must have". He was seen as a replacement to N'Jie who hadnt worked out, but that's now seeming like a pointless signing as this kid barely gets any time to play, despite exciting the fans in his cameo appearances. It's now December, yet he hasn't had a run in the team. Yet Alli and Eriksen who can be poor for long periods of time don't ever seem to get dropped. Janssen I feel is one we've been unlucky with. It just hasn't happened for him. Im not Son's biggest admirer either, but today he shouldn't have been taken off. He's been decent in the last couple of games and when someone is clearly playing better than someone else, that player Should be left on the pitch. The players who are currently making the team in our attacking positions generally lack pace. - Kane, Eriksen and Alli to name 3. If our fullbacks aren't providing that for whatever reason, or Son is playing badly or not on the pitch, our entire attacking ability goes to **** as our opponents have all the time in the world to deal with our slow motion non existent attacks, which also lack creativity to break stubborn defences. I'm no guru when it comes to the names of players we need, but we're crying out for a couple with pace, flair and intelligence that can provide genuine competition for places STRAIGHT AWAY!!
I have every confidence that our 'building from another CL campaign' will involve signing Wilfried Zaha for £35m on deadline day next August.
